Why the public are turning to comedians for the news

"People are turning to the comedians because they will not
bullshit them. This is good for traffic but bad for society," said
Baratunde Thurston,
director of digital of The Onion.

Thurston, who expressed a love of "live hate tweeting" whilst
watching Twilight films, was one of three experts giving
their view in the closing keynote panel debate of day one at the
Guardian's Changing Media
Summit, which tackled "the future is social, local and
mobile".

"The beauty of the internet is that everyone has a voice and the
horror of the internet is that everyone has a voice", says
Thurston, who put this to the test by "live writing" his book, How To Be Black,
allowing everyone to comment as he scribbled. But, for news
outlets, the key is using services like social networking data
analysis tool Knodes to target people
who are already engaged with you and the topic. "Don't just blast
everything to everybody," he quipped.

For the Guardian, its Facebook app, which was launched last year, has proven that
engagement with one of the hardest groups to reach -- the 18-24
year olds -- is not only possible but can be hugely successful by
simply allowing people to engage with the stories they want. And
this is a global audience.

Tanya
Cordrey, director of digital development, Guardian News and
Media, told the conference: "The Facebook app is a very different
product for us. It is a pure social app, fuelled by social sharing.
There is no editorial curation: content surfaces because your
friends have read or watched it through frictionless sharing. We
have no control over the content that goes viral or over the
distribution of the content, however important, that never catches
on."

In the five months since launch, eight million people have
downloaded the app and, adds Cordrey, around 40,000 people continue
to sign up every day. But, interestingly, the app has also driven
traffic back to the Guardian website -- more than eight
million unique visitors to date. Last month, adds Cordrey, for
several days, Facebook drove more traffic to the newspaper's
website than Google; and this, she believes, is a portent of things
to come.

With this is mind, she added, the Guardian and the BBC
shouldn't be concerned that people aren't reading news from
traditional channels as much anymore -- "because if you added up
all of the metrics, people are probably consuming even more than
ever".